I review tampon ads

January 8, 2016

We all bleed. It’s just that some of us bleed more regularly than others and some of us bleed from the goddamn vagina.

As a whole commercial industry has sprung up around this natural phenomena, we are now faced with a clusterfuck of sanitary advertising on television aiming to show us the correct way to elegantly bleed in a feminine manner while using one particular brand of heavily taxed product.

These ads have to be dainty enough to be accepted by a wide variety of television audiences, including prudes, cockwombles and ignorant fucknuckles, so any realism surrounding the period experience is carefully doused in that strange blue liquid and wiped away.

I felt the whole concept requires an attack of the sarcastic bitch.

This ad aired on New Zealand television when I was in my late teens. It made me furious then, it still has that effect today. Where do I start? Firstly, why don’t her clothes fit? Tank tops aren’t that difficult to put on. They have stretch. Skinny jeans can be a bit of a pain, but usually if they’re as difficult as she makes out you’re not getting the top button done up without a serious muffin. She even has difficult, too tight shoes. WTF?

This leads us to our second point: who in fuck gets one hundred percent dressed (including shoes) before even addressing the fact that they have their period? No-fucking-one. Is she just freebleeding into her skinnies? You get out of the shower, you choose your knickers and you put on the tampon or pad. That’s the order. No one is putting on the ridiculous too-tight jeans only to have to pull them down again three minutes later to put a damned pad on.

Thirdly, why is she keeping pads unwrapped in a bedroom draw? Pads are kept in the bathroom where you will fucking need them. They are kept wrapped up to keep them clean and so you have something to wrap your used pad up in when you go to dispose of it. Before you suggest that he did it, no boy would even consider unwrapping a pad to present to you at the bathroom door. No boy would even notice that there was a difference between the two pads.

Here we find our fourth WTF: the pad on the right is not more comfortable than the pad on the left because it has a heart shape at the end that will gently caress your vulva. Just fuck off with that. We don’t believe you. I’ve actually worn the heart pads, trust me, your vulva won’t notice or thank you. Put on the damned pad, blondie, there’s a wet patch forming in your skinnies.

Lastly, why are women in general made out to be fucking idiots in this ad? Who the fuck do you think your target audience is, Libra? Ruffled boyfriends who sit in bedrooms unwrapping pads? They don’t exist. Try again. “Oooh women are so stupid with their uncomfortable clothes and their inability to see irony hahaha now give me your money because BIOLOGY”. Bastards.

Our second ad is very short, but with all the WTF you’d expect. Woman waggles box of tampons at her significant other over the breakfast (maybe lunch) table. We don’t know if it’s just his place or if they both live here, but she’s found some tampons that aren’t hers and the logical conclusion is that he’s having raunchy period sex with someone else. She doesn’t seem particularly upset about this, she’s going for more of a “gotcha!” smirk.

Then his sister wanders in and it is clear to her that women he doesn’t want to have raunchy period sex with also menstruate. The question is, why didn’t he tell her that his sister was visiting? That seems weird, especially if the girlfriend lives there. Even if she lives elsewhere, she’s been in the house long enough to discover a box of tampons that I assume weren’t just left on the kitchen table for no goddamn reason. Didn’t she also see an overnight bag, maybe an extra toothbrush and some face cream that may have also tipped her off to the visitor situation? Didn’t the “what have you been up to?”, “oh, just been to the airport to pick up my sister” conversation happen at any point?

Also, she seems more upset that he isn’t cheating than she was was when she thought she’d caught him. Just break up with him, girly. You ain’t feeling it. You don’t need to wait for a raunchy-period-sex based excuse to leave a relationship. Just leave. And enough with the “periods make women irrational crazy bitches” line of advertising, please. Seriously, “target audience”. Research that shit.

Our last advertisement is from Tampax. It’s all about the lols. Oh, those crazy lols. Seriously, isn’t this just the thing that terrifies little girls about swimming during that time of the month? Why would they want to advertise that as a positive of using their product?

“Use Tampax, feel even more like a bloated cow than you already do”. “Tampax, perfect for embarrassing situations in front of a member of the opposite sex while almost naked”. Or even “Tampax: there’s no way that EVERY ONE won’t know the red menace is present.”